


Three Minutes

by oddgit



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt, Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 00:45:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11956173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddgit/pseuds/oddgit
Summary: For Zaniida's Birthday!





	Three Minutes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zaniida](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaniida/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Three Minutes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11827620) by [Zaniida](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaniida/pseuds/Zaniida). 



> For Zaniida's Birthday!

_“Will you… will you talk to me?” Finch asks, his voice gone small. “Please, just… anything… just help me wait, keep me calm until she gets here. Give me something to cling to. Be with me. Talk to me. Please.”_

“Okay…” John hears Harold breathing quickly on the other end of the line. His mind is desperately going in a million directions thinking of something to say. “When did you learn to code?” John asks, thinking of how calm Harold always gets when he’s working on coding.

“I…” Harold huffs, “Uhh. I was sixteen.” The words come out as nothing more than nervous and choked sobs.

“That’s really young,” John continued, hearing the sirens behind him as he walks away from the scene, leaving the perps tied up for Fusco and Carter.

“I hacked into the Arpanet a year later.” John hears Harold sit down in his computer chair. “Coding always took my mind off things. Off life. Off my mother’s death… my father’s illness… everything.”

“It relaxes you; I’ve seen it,” John replies.

He can hear the smile in Harold’s voice, “Yes. It does… I stayed away from it for a while… didn’t want to attract any attention to myself. But then I was accepted into MIT. Met Nathan… and the rest is history of course.”

John can sense that Harold is much more relaxed now by just the sound of his voice… the easiness of his breathing. After a few moments of Harold talking about what an encrypted file was and when he made his first one... John looks at the clock on the car radio.

“Finch,” John realizes that their conversation has gone on longer than three minutes… “It’s been longer than three minutes and she’s still not there…” John is a few blocks away from the library but the traffic is terrible.

He hears Harold typing on the computer, the familiar sound of the click clacks of the keys flooding him with a tiny bit of relief. “I don’t see her on any of the cameras…” Maybe Root was bluffing… “Mr. Reese… Maybe she…”

But then John hears a strained gasp on the other side of the line.

“Harold…? Finch!?” John hears some shuffling.

“John…” He hears Harold let out a pained gasp, “She’s here…”

John punches the steering wheel, “Harold, don’t give up. I will find you.”

He hears another painful gasp and then a few seconds later a thud. Sounding terribly familiar… like someone falling to the ground unconscious… drugged.

He hears static and then someone picked up Harold’s earpiece…

“Hello, John.” She says sweetly.

“I will find you and get him back.” John lets his voice go deadly serious. “And I will make you sorry that you ever came back.”

“Oh, that sounds like a challenge.” Root replies indifferently.

“It’s a promise…” John replies and cuts the connection off before she has a chance to reply.

There is no doubt in John Reese’s mind… he will move heaven and earth to get his partner back from the clutches of that psychopath. There was nothing that would stop him.


End file.
